Friday, September 07, 2018

The Alarming Palsy of James Orr ~ Tom Lee

Granta have come to my rescue with a couple of short novels recently that have been both engrossing and readable in a long afternoon, or two sittings, and one of them, The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee had me invested in the outcome from the first page and it slots into the medical reading category too.

'When James Orr woke up, a little later than usual, he had the sense that there was something not quite right, some indefinable shift in the normal order of things, but it was not until he bumped into his wife on the landing - James had been sleeping in the spare room for several weeks - that he had a clue as to what it might be.

'Oh,' said Sarah Orr, and put her hand to her mouth in genuine alarm.

James continued to the bathroom and there, in the mirror, he saw the cause of her dismay - and such dismay did not seem unreasonable...'

James has woken up with a severe case of Bell's Palsy. One side of his face seems to have slipped away from the other and with it will come a complete slipping away of the comfortable ordered life that James has known. I was reminded of tectonic plates in an earthquake for some reason, and it will be no less of an earthquake that shakes James's life out of its settled ways

The couple live on a private housing estate built in the 1960s and New Glades allows for a very controlled and ordered way of life surrounded as it is by woodland and well-managed green space for the children to play. There is a sense of veiled snobbery and controlled freedom with everyone conforming to the norms whilst attempting to distance themselves from any hint of elitism; the management committee devising ways to repel all non-resident invaders and constantly debating the installation of CCTV cameras to catch the interlopers who leave rubbish (and worse) in their wake. Fortress New Glades.

With an obvious facial deformity, difficulty speaking and an eye that won't blink, James is beset by difficulties he could never have imagined, and Tom Lee perfectly illustrates the sapping away of confidence and the loss of self-esteem that can manifest itself through illness and disability. When the affliction is facial and highly visible the effects are even more acute, and the powerlessness that pervades James's previously ordered and successful life is both profound and debilitating. His family life, his work life, his circadian rhythms, his moods, his status and his authority all insidiously eroded as the control decreases by the day.

It really is a case of reading on, not only because the book is so well-written, but because something is bound to happen, the question is what...

Of course now I can't say another word, but if you are in need of something a bit different and a book that will stay with you and give you much to think about after the final page, then I can highly recommend The Alarming Palsy of James Orr.

And it has really made me think about the impact of illness and disability in all its forms...

How readily it can strip away who a person is in the eyes of others, and how they view themselves...

And there must be plenty more fiction suggestions that demonstrate this too...

Comments

The Alarming Palsy of James Orr ~ Tom Lee

Granta have come to my rescue with a couple of short novels recently that have been both engrossing and readable in a long afternoon, or two sittings, and one of them, The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee had me invested in the outcome from the first page and it slots into the medical reading category too.

'When James Orr woke up, a little later than usual, he had the sense that there was something not quite right, some indefinable shift in the normal order of things, but it was not until he bumped into his wife on the landing - James had been sleeping in the spare room for several weeks - that he had a clue as to what it might be.

'Oh,' said Sarah Orr, and put her hand to her mouth in genuine alarm.

James continued to the bathroom and there, in the mirror, he saw the cause of her dismay - and such dismay did not seem unreasonable...'

James has woken up with a severe case of Bell's Palsy. One side of his face seems to have slipped away from the other and with it will come a complete slipping away of the comfortable ordered life that James has known. I was reminded of tectonic plates in an earthquake for some reason, and it will be no less of an earthquake that shakes James's life out of its settled ways

The couple live on a private housing estate built in the 1960s and New Glades allows for a very controlled and ordered way of life surrounded as it is by woodland and well-managed green space for the children to play. There is a sense of veiled snobbery and controlled freedom with everyone conforming to the norms whilst attempting to distance themselves from any hint of elitism; the management committee devising ways to repel all non-resident invaders and constantly debating the installation of CCTV cameras to catch the interlopers who leave rubbish (and worse) in their wake. Fortress New Glades.

With an obvious facial deformity, difficulty speaking and an eye that won't blink, James is beset by difficulties he could never have imagined, and Tom Lee perfectly illustrates the sapping away of confidence and the loss of self-esteem that can manifest itself through illness and disability. When the affliction is facial and highly visible the effects are even more acute, and the powerlessness that pervades James's previously ordered and successful life is both profound and debilitating. His family life, his work life, his circadian rhythms, his moods, his status and his authority all insidiously eroded as the control decreases by the day.

It really is a case of reading on, not only because the book is so well-written, but because something is bound to happen, the question is what...

Of course now I can't say another word, but if you are in need of something a bit different and a book that will stay with you and give you much to think about after the final page, then I can highly recommend The Alarming Palsy of James Orr.

And it has really made me think about the impact of illness and disability in all its forms...

How readily it can strip away who a person is in the eyes of others, and how they view themselves...

And there must be plenty more fiction suggestions that demonstrate this too...

Constants...

Team Tolstoy

Team TolstoyA year-long shared read of War & Peace through the centenary year of Count Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's death, starting on his birthday, September 9th 2010.
Everyone is welcome to board the troika and read along, meeting here on the 9th of every month to chat in comments about the book.

Team Tolstoy BookmarkDon't know your Bolkonskys from your Rostovs?
An aide memoire that can be niftily printed and laminated into a double-sided bookmark.

Port Eliot Festival

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